The work-from-home office has been running quite successfully from the cottage for the past two weeks. There were the usual teething problems, internet hiccups etc but the technical glitches are being gradually ironed out. The interior spaces still need some tweaking and the builders are still installing guttering, but in general, it’s working out pretty much as planned.

To put a stop to dirt and grit being tramped onto the lovely wooden floors, we needed to do something about the access quickly and I asked a friend of mine who runs a small gardening business to give me some help. I had a good idea of what the end result should look like and this morning Marion arrived with her little team of workmen and got straight to work. She also recommended someone to install the sprinkler system for that small area, which will run off a separate control panel from the main house. He came along too and by the end of today we had not only a very promising garden but also a functional watering system. After all the delays, excuses and mistakes we’ve become accustomed to hearing over the past year, this almost seems too good to be true.

Cottage Garden from the East.

The picture above is taken from the cottage carport on the east side. The strip of red in the background is the gate from the street to the main house. It still needs to be painted white. The terra-cotta pots on the veranda came from our old home. They have been ‘stored’ in a corner of the site since the end of February and have somehow survived the dust and general chaos. In fact the cymbidium has a spray of buds and looks likely to flower soon.

In the middle of the white, boundary wall on the left, you might notice a ‘box’ with two black dots; that is a burglar alarm beam. Seemed like a sensible place for it a few months ago but now I will need to be careful not to allow anything to grow tall enough to interfere with the beam.

This small patch of garden is on the south side of the cottage so we’ve chosen plants that don’t need a lot of sun, including azaleas and clivia. We’ve also planted several baby ‘tickey’ creepers along the wall. They’re slow-growing but will ‘soften’ the walls nicely once they’re established. To avoid any need of a lawn mower, we’ve put down pavers interspersed with ground cover. Hopefully all the bits of bare ground will be covered soon.

Cottage Garden from the West side.

And while we’re talking about gardens and watering systems, I thought I’d include a photo of the water tanks which have been installed – not without some difficulty – in the ‘bunker’ behind the pool.

One of two water storage tanks.

This water tank is directly in front of a second, identical one. Each tank holds 4500 litres of water much of which will come directly off our roof during the rainy summer season. With our municipal water supply having been quite erratic over the past few years, it seems like a good idea to have other options in place.

The ‘bunker’ while still under construction and before the start of the pool.

Looking at the photo above again, it is clear that a lot has happened since it was taken, but progress does still seem to be painfully slow at this stage. Hopefully the garden will be more cooperative!